


Have You Ever Imagined

by Bhelryss



Series: AU: Zombies [6]
Category: Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Genre: Body Horror, Canon Typical Violence, Gen, Zombies, for monica, i don't think it counts as mcd if both characters canonically die, i don't think it's bad but a heads up never hurts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:28:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26411920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bhelryss/pseuds/Bhelryss
Summary: “Make it stop,” Eirika demands. “Make it stop, or-”“Or you’ll kill me?” Riev tuts, and turns away towards the throne. “I won’t be the one dying here,” he says gently. “I enjoy this, this game. I shall be playing it for ages, under my lord’s blessing.”
Relationships: Eirika & Ephraim (Fire Emblem), Eirika & Fado (Fire Emblem), Ephraim & Fado (Fire Emblem)
Series: AU: Zombies [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1049063
Kudos: 3





	Have You Ever Imagined

Ephraim looks out at their home from the gate of a small village. It’s in the distance, details lost to the miles, and the sight of it fills Eirika with grief. Their father...Ephraim had told her. (She suspects...Ephraim is keeping some of the harder details from her, but her frustration with being coddled pales in the face of the news.) Lyon...killed their father.

Lyon  _ killed _ their father?  _ Lyon _ killed-!?

“Orson is in there.” Ephraim’s voice is steel, face set in a frown. Is he furious? This is his former general sitting on their father’s throne, after all.  _ She’s _ upset, maybe even angry. War has muddied her emotions, she is afraid and angry and grieving and determined, it’s hard to pull out any  _ one _ reaction clearly from the others.

“He is,” she confirms quietly. What else can she say? There’s a tangle just under her sternum, screaming for justice or revenge and crying because this can’t be real. None of this should be real. How could Orson? How could Lyon? It doesn’t make any sense! The world turned upside down somehow and there’s no turning it back.

She could scream, and the reason is definitely outrage and fury.

Blood slick on her sword, they break into the throne room expecting Orson, expecting a paladin of Renais crowned in stolen glory. But no...it’s Riev, that twisted priest, with a wide smile on his face. “Welcome home, princess, prince.”

There’s someone wearing their father’s armor standing next to him, helmet squarely on their head to obscure their face. Ephraim vibrates next to her, wearing his rage so clearly and so easily. Hers is chained down somewhere, boiling beneath her tongue and unwelcome. She’s supposed to be the level-headed one, but...she can’t be that now.

For good or ill, Eirika is  _ acting _ now.

“I hope you will say hello to your father? King Fado has missed you so dearly.”

“Father?” she wants to whisper, but doesn’t. 

“You lie,” Ephraim snarls. “Lyon killed our father.” (And how could he have done it.  _ How _ could Lyon do that? Their father! Their father!! He’s our friend, she wants to howl, how  _ could _ he!? The demon king is stealing him away piece by piece, but she still can’t believe that he was forced to kill their father. Their father!)

Riev tuts. “You take things so literally.” Taps a finger to his lower lip, and tuts again. “Surely you’re aware of the power of the demon king by now. My lord has many powers.” He spreads his hands like he’s presenting Fado, and dips into an extremely shallow false bow. “Miraculous, no?”

The power to raise revenants, bonewalkers, the very ancient long-ago war dead from their forgotten graves- oh,  _ oh _ . No,  _ no _ . Distraught, she looks to Ephraim, who has his brow furrowed. “Speak plainly,” he demands. He doesn’t comprehend, he hasn’t connected the dots. He’s listened to her tales, but...he hasn’t realized it yet. Please let her be wrong.

“Dear King Fado, if you will,” Riev prompts, gesturing towards where they are standing.

“My children,” their father says, voice a whisper, rough and...ill sounding. “My children.”

Chills go down her spine, partly buried despair, made during her flight to Frelia and partly of her worry, and partly sudden newborn hope. The demon king can raise the dead. But surely...not like this. Surely not like this. Maybe it’s  _ real _ .

“Reunions are so heartwarming,” Riev says, rubbing his hands together and smiling like he’s gotten a gift.

Ephraim bristles, feet sliding into position to launch him forward. So long as Riev is talking, so long as their father is too close to the twisted priest, he won’t move. “Shut up,” he orders. What do you want.”

“To see.” He chuckles and lays a hand on an armored shoulder. “Go on then,” he says softly like he’s encouraging a child. “Your children are here.” Father steps forward, accepts a lance from a secondary priest who bows to Riev as he leaves, and approaches.

“My children,” he murmurs, and Ephraim relaxes where Eirika steps forward. Until the lance points at her heart, and she is forced to retreat on stumbling feet. “My children.”

“Father!” Ephraim snaps, snagging Eirika’s sleeve in time to keep her from tumbling backward onto her ass. “Eirika. You’ve seen the priest before. What did he do?”

“Father’s possessed,” she says back, words clipped with the need for haste, “Like Lyon. I think we can fix this, we’ll make Riev turn him back.”  _ I think _ , she doesn’t say.  _ I think Father could be possessed. _

“Go for the priest,” Ephraim orders. “I’ll have a better time keeping Father busy.” Lance versus lance, Ephraim will lose. Neither of them could hope to best Father in an actual fight, and they’d never bested him in a spar. Ephraim will lose, because Father has the longer reach.

Eirika nods, and launches forward at the same time Ephraim makes a distracting strike. She’s faster than Father, faster than Ephraim, and she tears past them both without even a pause. Her brother will hold the line. She has her own job. 

Riev laughs in her face as she closes the distance between them, and more soldiers emerge from the shadows she hadn’t paid attention to. “Fuck,” why hadn’t she checked for more opponents? They won’t stop her. Grado won’t stop her. Her father needs her. Ephraim needs her to be  _ swift _ . Until they fix this, Father won’t stop and she doesn’t have the ability to make enough cold rationale in her heart needed to  _ stop _ her father. To hurt him enough that he won’t keep fighting. How could she do that to someone she loves?

So she lifts her sword, she keeps a strong stance, and she doesn’t stop. She doesn’t stop until the soldiers are either down or dead. Riev, with no one left to hide behind, hasn’t stopped smiling. “Stop this,” she demands. “Let our father go. Reverse the demon king’s hold on him.”

“Oh, princess,” Riev refutes with an oil-slick smile, “you don’t want me to do that. Will you see what the demon king grants you? Will you look?” He doesn’t even pause to hear her response. “I will show you.”

He turns his back to her, and Eirika thinks that Ephraim would stab him.

“Come out, dear,” he calls softly, and a  _ creature _ steps out from behind the throne. It’s a woman, or it  _ was _ a woman. The words are spoken softly, but there’s something else in his tone. Something markedly at odds with the affectionate response.

“Darling?”

“Yes, my dove,” he says before he laughs, and the words aren’t genuine, she can tell by the laughter. It’s mocking. He’s mocking this shambling...thing.

“Is that my mother’s dress,” Eirika manages, words threatening to choke her, before the  _ smell _ hits her. As the...woman...creeps forward with tottering steps, Eirika is struck by how...broken she looks. Like a revenant, she’s hunched over and her skin is ashen. Unlike a revenant, she doesn’t seem to have any drive to carve flesh from the living with claws made from their own sharpened finger bones.

“Isn’t she wonderful?” Riev asks of Eirika, seemingly unaffected by the smell of rot. Another wave of it washes over her, and gagging, Eirika takes a step backwards towards her father and brother. “She was left in my care when my lord took that paladin away. Husbands can be so stupid, but he  _ is _ useful to my lord. Look at how she moves, see how she reacts to my words. Dove, please say hello to your princess.”

_ Her _ princess?

This is one of her people?

“Darling,” the creature coos, turning slowly towards Eirika with empty eyes. There’s no comprehension there, in that thing. In what was once a woman. In what was one a loved one to someone. In what used to be one of her people. “Darling…”

Eirika shuffles backwards, retreating one step for every step the woman takes. “Oh, don’t run away,” Riev chides, “she won’t harm you. She had no enemies in life, so she has no enemies in death. Come closer, princess. Dove,” the pet name drops from his lips likes velvet, smoothly, “come back.”

From behind her, she hears Ephraim cry out in pain. She turns back and sees blood, dripping onto the ground from the tip of her father’s lance. Ephraim’s next swing knocks the helmet off of their fathers head, eliciting a wordless  _ cry _ . “Oh, the reveal, how lovely.

“Do you see now? The extent of my lord’s power?”

“My children,” Fado mumbles, words tumbling like river stones from his mouth, “my children.” He hefts the lance again, only paused for a moment after losing that helmet. “My children.” Ephraim stumbles backwards, arm swinging up to shield his lower face to cover a yelp.

The woman, Dove?, returns to Riev’s side, and when she stops moving her head hangs limply down. Almost like, almost like she can’t keep it up. Riev touches her shoulder, hand resting on the rich red silk of Eirika’s dress - her mother’s dress. There are seeping discolored splotches along the bodice, and Eirika can’t look away.

“Make it stop,” Eirika demands. “Make it stop, or-”

“Or you’ll kill me?” Riev tuts, and turns away towards the throne. “I won’t be the one dying here,” he says gently. “I enjoy this, this game. I shall be playing it for ages, under my lord’s blessing.”

He pauses, and turns slightly back towards Eirika, “You have the Frelian siblings with you, yes?” He doesn’t wait for Eirika to bluster at his implicit threat. “Do you think they will strike at you, when you are turned against them?” He waves to Ephraim, who is bleeding and favoring what must be a deep wound, given by their  _ father _ , “Or will they abstain, and let you kill them, like you and the prince?”

Delighted, his smile lights up his face. It’s an  _ ugly _ smile, and she doesn’t use that term lightly. “You won’t be stopped either, except by lethal blow. Do you have it in you to kill your own father?” Curiosity lights up his eyes, and Eirika tenses up as he leans forward. Riev waves to the fight going on behind her, “Will you have it in your heart to stop your own brother? The magic will take him, when he succumbs.

“What will you do, princess-”

Eirika shoves Riev off her sword, and grimly turns away from his gasping last breaths. Evil will not stop her. Horror will not stop her from doing what is right. Her own breaking heart will not stay her hand. Knowing this could happen again at Riev’s will...he had to be stopped. And she’s the only one here.

She takes a deep breath, and feels the tears behind her eyes and the great gaping grief that threatens to swallow her, and then pushes it away to deal with...after.

Father has to be stopped. He would  _ want _ to be stopped, rather than hurt them. Like he’s hurting Ephraim, right now. She has the advantage of surprise, Father is facing away from her and raising his weapon for a definitive, fatal blow.

_ Father _ ,  _ forgive me _ .

As Fado falls, Eirika lets her sword fall with him. Ephraim looks up at her with wide, grieving eyes that undoubtedly match her own. “Why?” Ephraim asks, “We were going to  _ save him _ .” 

With a struggle, Eirika swallows down the tears and the broken pieces of her heart and shakes her head. “He, he was already dead. Riev...Lyon did something.” And Father would have  _ wanted to be stopped _ . Her grief cannot stop her from doing the right thing. She has to be strong.

“He  _ spoke to us _ .” The words are ground out, angry. “Maybe he was just sick, Eirika how  _ could you _ ! He wasn’t a monster, he was our father!”

“He  _ wasn’t anymore _ , Ephraim! He tried to  _ kill you _ , and he, he would’ve wanted us to stop him.” Please believe me, Eirika prays, please. “There’s one just, just like him up by the throne. She’s...rotted away and shuffling. She  _ speaks _ . Riev...he wasn’t lying. Ephraim, listen to me.”

He shakes his head.


End file.
